Despite having the advantage of an optimized G94 core with higher clocks and memory bandwidth, the 9600GT with 32 shaders less lost to the re-branded 9600GSO.

Do note that the market is flooded different flavors, result would be very different between 9600GSO of 192MB vs 384MB vs 768MB (even 1536MB), on top of different factory overclocks. Its a pity that we cannot possibly test our every version out there. Prices varies widely as well, so do take clocks, memory size, output types, warranty duration, package contents into your purchase consideration.

GeForce 8800GS was an unpopular product when it was launched. Nvidia simply injected a doze of 9-series (marketing) magic into it and, *poof!* 8800GS evolves into 9600GSO overnight. What changed? Just the name, same G92 core with 96 shaders running on 192-bit memory interface remained unchanged. But this time round, card makers are given more freedom in designing their own custom PCB, the amount of memory, as well as the clocks.

The official clocks for GeForce 9600GSO is 550/1375/1600 (core/shader/memory), which is exactly the same as 8800GS, yet slightly lower than the announced reference clocks of 580/1450/1400 earlier on. I guess this move will encourage partners to come out with more profitable overclocked editions.

Do note that Forceware 174.14 WHQL can support GeForce 9 series products as well as MCP78 chipset. The only difference is that Forceware 174.88 added in support for the 9600 GSO.

The arrival of Intel X58 chipset marks a new era in multi-card gaming technology. The X58 chipset supports both Nvidia and ATI's multi-card platforms. Now gamers opting to build a high end gaming platform can choose ATI's Crossfire/CrossfireX or Nvidia's SLI/3-Way/Quad-SLI technologies.

In today's review, we are going to bench two Radeon HD4870X2 in CrossFireX against three GeForce GTX280 in 3-way SLI. The following review is an abstract of the original article. First, let's take a look at the specification chart of both graphics cards:

"Over the years we've heard a lot of feedback from you about what you'd like to change about YouTube, and the size of our video player is always top of mind. That's why today we're excited to announce a bigger YouTube player.

We're expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don't worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player..."

"Broward County (FL) - A 19-yr old named Abraham K. Biggs was urged to commit suicide on live streaming TV this past Wednesday. The viewers thought Biggs was joking after taking a bunch of pills and appearing to slowly go to sleep. After a few hours they began to realize he was serious and contacted the authorities. The Broward County medical examiner confirmed Biggs' death shortly thereafter..."

16 November 2008

"Located in a 30-story office tower in the heart of Silicon Valley, in downtown San Jose, a relatively small firm was involved in a full scale cyber crime network. The McColo Corporation operated the servers located within the building, and they were involved in hosting services for all types of firms that compromised computers to advertise counterfeit designer goods, pharmaceuticals, fake Internet security products and even child pornography by way of e-mail.

Viewing the company’s website is no longer possible, two Internet providers cut off McColo’s connectivity to the Internet. Almost instantaneously, security companies noticed a tremendous drop in the global volume of spam. E-mail security firm IronPort said that spam levels had fallen by almost 66% as of Tuesday evening.

Spam watchdog Spamcop.net stated that there was a decline of 10 - 40 spam emails per second.

At this time, it is not known whether McColo be legally responsible will be for the activities of their clients. At this time there is no confirmation that the company has been charged with a crime.

Private security researcher Jart Armin has been documenting the activity of McColo. She mentioned that currently McColo is hosted at a minimum 40 different child pornography websites, or sites that collect payment for the content. A traffic analysis of one of the sites proved that each one of these sites were generating between 15,000 and 25,000 visitors daily.

For several months, cyber criminals have been utilizing servers at McColo to manage websites that send out new versions of the “Torpig” or “Sinowal” Trojan horse program that is one of the most stealthy malware programs in existence currently.

This is just one more successful move in the government’s quest to go more seriously after spammers. Last month, the FTC seized the assets of Herbal King that was in the business of selling counterfeit prescription drugs. This network was deemed the largest “spam gang” in the world. The spammers utilized the Mega-D botnet, which reportedly was able to send 10 billion e-mail messages per day."

08 November 2008

PhysX, the "in" thing in 3D PC gaming these days. Nvidia injected a boost of PhysX support to all GeForce 8 series & above cards. On the other hand, ATI has trouble coming up with similar features in the same field. So what can ATI fans do for now? One way is to add a mid-range GeForce card to the existing CrossFire platform, which will be covered here today. The following is an extract from the original article.

The test will be based on the Colorful C.A790GX X3. As the product name suggests, the board has 3 PCI-E 16x slots.

The PCI Express slots.

The blue one is a fully compatible PCI-E 2.0 16x slot. Under closer observation, you can see that the blacks' slots are missing half the pins, that is because they are in x8 configuration, providing x8 and x4 speed respectively.

The jumpers need to be changed to 2-3 configuration in order to enable a dual-card CrossFire mode. In CrossFire mode, the first two PCI-E slots (blue and black) will be run at x8 + x8 configuration.

02 November 2008

Massa takes a vital pole for his home Grand Prix! The current World Champion Raikkonen takes 3rd, separated by Jarno Trulli's surprising second place. Hamilton, whom silenced the Brazilian crowd with a first place in Q2, will only start from 4th place, behind the second placed Toyota. Below is the qualifying session table: